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Rural Newspaper Calls for the President and the Senate to “Mind Their Business”

The Enid News and Eagle posted an opinion article last week on the new farm bill. Admittedly, it is a rural paper (based in Enid, Oklahoma) catering to a rural readership. Most of you will probably not have seen it. But I was struck by a number of passages.

Take this one, for starters:

“It seems the 2002 farm bill was one of the more popular farm bills to come out in the history of farm bills, according to Frank Lucas. The Third District representative has been traveling the state getting input from agricultural officials and farmers on what should be included in the 2007 version of the farm bill.”

Of course the 2002 Farm Bill was popular, Congressman, at least with the “agricultural officials and farmers” you are talking to. A significant backtrack from previous farm bills, payments to farmers under the 2002 Farm Bill are projected to average over US$20 billion per year from 2005 to 2007. Agriculture officials are hardly going to support huge cuts to the agriculture budget, either.

Or consider this gem:

“…the House committee knows the most about agriculture and has the most contact with the people it will affect…”

The Enid News and Eagle is suggesting that the “people it will affect” are farmers and ranchers. This is undeniably true. But this farm bill, like all the others before it, will also affect every taxpayer and consumer of food in the country, not to mention commodity producers abroad. (more here)

On the one hand, it seems fairly reasonable that as part of the 2007 Farm Bill preparations, the administration and House and Senate Committee Members are holding a series of hearings all over the country. But on the other, who shows up to those hearings? Is it the consumers and taxpayers who, while collectively shelling out billions of dollars every year to agricultural subsidies and paying over-market prices, shoulder relatively little burden as individuals? No. Most of them have jobs to go to and little incentive to harangue Congressmen and officials. Farmers, on the other hand, are relatively well organized and have large incentive to ask for more money (or, in their more modest moments, ‘just’ the status quo).

Finally, for good measure, the Enid News and Eagle proposes letting the House agriculture committee and the farmers have full and exclusive rights over the farm bill:

“While we encourage input from farmers and ranchers, we discourage a lot of input in the bill from the president and the Senate.”

I’m new to this country, but isn’t there supposed to be a system of checks and balances here? Why do these opinion writers assert that there is no role for the administration or the Senate in crafting a new farm bill? While I, too, think there should be “little input” from government in farm policy, I don’t restrict my skepticism to only one chamber and the president.

If you missed our forum today on the farm bill, you can watch it here within the next 24 to 48 hours.